COALITION GOVERNMENTNo stranger to Canada's system
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff kicked off his election campaign by ruling out forming a coalition government, if no party wins a majority of seats in Parliament once the ballots are counted on May 2.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says the choice is a Conservative majority or a coalition. Adrian Wyld/Canadian PressConservative Leader Stephen Harper's not buying it.
"Let me be perfectly clear: unless Canadians elect a stable national majority government, Michael Ignatieff will form a coalition with the NDP and Bloc Québécois," Harper said moments after announcing the election date.
Ignatieff noted that the party that wins the most seats gets to try to form a government.
"If that is the Liberal Party, then I will be required to rapidly seek the confidence of the newly-elected Parliament," Ignatieff said in a statement released before the election writ was dropped. "If our government cannot win the support of the House, then Mr. Harper will be called on to form a government and face the same challenge. That is our c onstitution. It is the law of the land."
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and his team kick off the campaign by insisting a coalition government is not in the cards. Ryan Remiorz/Canadian PressThat's the way things run in countries that have adopted the Westminster system, a democratic parliamentary system of government modeled on what's been in place in the United Kingdom for centuries.
Under that system, if no party wins a majority of seats in an election, the party that wins the most seats gets an invitation from the monarch (the Governor-General in Canada) to form a government. That government gets to govern as long as it can rely on support from enough opposition members to get its legislation through the House of Commons.
If that party can't secure enough support, the Governor-General has two choices: dissolve Parliament and call another election or invite the leader of the party that has won the second greatest number of seats to try to form a government.
The leader of that party can then try to secure the confidence of the House by putting forth a legislative agenda that enough opposition members will support.
Opting to co-operate
Countries where coalitions are common
Germany: coalition is the norm as it is rare for either the Christian Democrats or Social Democrats to win a majority.
Belgium: coalition governments of up to six parties are common.
Italy: constant coalition governments since the end of the Second World War.
Finland: no party has held a majority of seats since independence in 1917.
Israel: while Labour or Likud usually dominates, each has to rely on several partners from the dozens of small parties to form a government.
There is a third option: a formal coalition, like the one that's governing Great Britain right now. David Cameron's Conservative Party beat Gordon Brown's Labour Party in the May 2010 general election, but fell short of a majority.
Brown negotiated with the third-largest party — the Liberal Democrats — to secure their support as he tried to remain in power. Those talks failed.
Cameron's talks were successful. He negotiated a deal with Nick Clegg — the leader of the Liberal Democrats — that led to Britain's first coalition government since the Second World War.
That deal saw Clegg win the post of Deputy Prime Minister. Four other members of his party were appointed to cabinet. While it is a Conservative government, the Liberal Democrats are a formal part of the government and have a say in the legislative agenda.
A coalition government happened once before in post-Confederation Canada — and it could happen again, although Ignatieff says it won't in 2011.
In 1917, Conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden attracted enough Liberals to form a coalition known as the "Union Government," which eventually pushed conscription through Parliament. When the First World War ended a year later and the issue of conscription disappeared, the coalition began to fall apart as many of the Liberals who signed on returned to their original party.
Canada has no roadmap when it comes to how to form a coalition government. The Westminster system, which relies heavily on tradition and unwritten rules, doesn't spell out rules on forming coalition governments. But it clearly allows them.
In 1985, an accord between the Liberals and New Democrats in Ontario led to the end of a four decade-old Progressive Conservative dynasty. However, it was not a coalition government as no New Democrats sat at the cabinet table.
The New Democrats agreed to support the Liberals for two years, as long as the Liberals included certain issues in their legislative agenda. The NDP offered the same deal to the Conservatives, but they turned it down.
The closest Canada has come since the Union Government to a formal coalition was the agreement hammered out between the Liberals and New Democrats in 2008. It was a deal that the Bloc Quebécois said they would support. It was rife with problems, including the fact that the bigger party in the coalition had a leader who already pledged to resign — and tepid support from Michael Ignatieff, the man who was poised to replace him.
The accord that would have formed that coalition would have remained in effect until June 30, 2011.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Sponsorship Scandal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the "Sponsorship Scandal" in Canada.
Contents
1 Involved parties
2 Timeline
2.1 1995
2.2 1996
2.3 2000
2.4 2004
2.5 2005
2.6 2006
2.7 2007
3 Political consequences
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
The sponsorship scandal, "AdScam", "Sponsorship" or Sponsorgate, is a scandal that came as a result of a Canadian federal government "sponsorship program" in the province of Quebec and involving the Liberal Party of Canada, which was in power from 1993 to 2006. The program was originally established as an effort to raise awareness of the Government of Canada's contributions to Quebec industries and other activities in order to counter the actions of the Parti Québécois government of the province that worked to promote Quebec independence.
The program ran from 1996 until 2004, when broad corruption was discovered in its operations and the program was discontinued. Illicit and even illegal activities within the administration of the program were revealed, involving misuse and misdirection of public funds intended for government advertising in Quebec. Such misdirections included sponsorship money awarded to ad firms in return for little or no work, which firms maintained Liberal organizers or fundraisers on their payrolls or donated back part of the money to the Liberal Party. The resulting investigations and scandal affected the Liberal Party of Canada and the then-government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. It was an ongoing affair for years, but rose to national prominence in early 2004 after the program was examined by Sheila Fraser, the federal auditor general. Her revelations led to the government establishing the Gomery Commission to conduct a public inquiry and file a report on the matter. The official title of this inquiry was the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities.
In the national spotlight, the scandal became a significant factor in the lead-up to the 2006 federal election where after more than twelve years in power the Liberals were defeated by the Conservatives, who formed a minority government that was sworn in February 2006.
[edit] Involved parties This section requires expansion.
Jean Chrétien — Prime Minister of Canada at the time the Sponsorship Program was established and operated. The Gomery Commission, First Phase Report which assigned blame for the Sponsorship scandal cast most of the indemnity for misspent public funds, fraud on Chrétien and his Prime Minister's Office staff, though it cleared Chrétien himself of direct wrongdoing.
Jean Pelletier — Prime Minister's chief of staff and later chairman of VIA Rail. VIA Rail was accused of mishandling sponsorship deals, though mostly not under Pelletier's tenure.
Alfonso Gagliano — Minister of Public Works, and thus in charge of the program. Also the political minister for Quebec.
André Ouellet — member of Prime Minister Chrétien's Cabinet, longtime Liberal politician and later head of Canada Post, who was also accused of violating sponsorship rules.
Chuck Guité — bureaucrat in charge of the sponsorship program. Arrested for fraud by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) - convicted on five counts on June 6, 2006.
Jean Brault — head of Groupaction Marketing, one of the companies to which deals were directed. Arrested for fraud by the RCMP, he pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud and on May 5, 2006, was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Jacques Corriveau — Liberal organizer and head of Pluridesign to which millions in sponsorship dollars were directed.
Paul Martin — former Prime Minister of Canada. He was Minister of Finance, and Senior Minister from Quebec during most of the years the program occurred. When he became Prime Minister in December 2003, he claimed that he put a halt to it. He also set up the Gomery Commission which later cleared him of formal responsibility by Justice Gomery in his November 2005 'First Phase Report' of the Gomery Commission. The Gomery findings claimed that Martin, as finance minister, established a 'fiscal framework' but he did not have oversight as to the dispersal of the funds once they were apportioned to Chrétien's Prime Minister's Office. A report on the issue by the Auditor General's Office of Sheila Fraser came to the same conclusion. Nonetheless, Martin was frequently accused of tying Gomery's hands and using the sponsorship scandal as an excuse to purge the Liberals of members who supported Chrétien. The scandal played a factor in the federal election of 2006 and the fall of the Liberal Government. Shortly thereafter, Martin resigned from the liberal party leadership.
Joe Morselli — Liberal Party fundraiser. Jean Brault testified that the money exchanges were with Morselli.
Jean Lafleur — former CEO of Lafleur Communication Marketing Inc. One of the advertising executives that accepted money from the federal government. Pleaded guilty to 28 counts of fraud.
Allan Cutler — former civil servant and whistleblower who reported anomalies in a Canadian sponsorship program, triggering the Scandal.
[edit] Timeline[edit] 1995Allan Cutler first attempts to raise concerns about bid-rigging and political interference to the attention of senior management at the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada.
[edit] 1996Ernst & Young conducts an audit of contracting and tendering practices. The initial draft, which identified recurring problems and the risk of legal action, was altered in the final report. Ernst & Young representative Deanne Monaghan later indicated that she did not recall why the report had been changed to remove those references.[1]
[edit] 2000February — An internal audit reveals that none of the recommendations of the 1996 Ernst & Young audit have been implemented.
September — Minister Alfonso Gagliano receives the 2000 audit and suspends the Sponsorship Program. Later that year, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada begins investigating the program.
[edit] 2004February 10 — Auditor General Sheila Fraser's report reveals up to $100 million of the $250 million sponsorship program was awarded to Liberal-friendly advertising firms and Crown corporations for little or no work.
February 11 — Prime Minister Paul Martin orders a Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. The Commission of Inquiry will be headed by Justice John H. Gomery. Martin fires Alfonso Gagliano from his post in Denmark. Martin asserts that he had no knowledge of the scandal prior to the Auditor General's report.
February 13 — The National Post newspaper publishes a 2002 letter leaked to it by an unidentified third party, between the Liberal Party's then National Policy Chairman and Paul Martin, urging Martin to stop partisan financial abuses in the Sponsorship Program, thereby casting doubt on Martin's defence of personal ignorance.[2]
February 24 — Martin suspends Business Development Bank of Canada president Michel Vennat, VIA Rail president Marc LeFrançois and Canada Post president André Ouellet giving each an ultimatum to defend themselves or face further disciplinary action.
February 27 — Past Olympic gold medallist Myriam Bédard reveals she was pushed from her job at VIA Rail for questioning billing practices. VIA Rail chairman Jean Pelletier publicly belittles Bédard and calls her pitiful.
March 1 — Pelletier is fired.
March 3 — Jean Carle, a close confidant of Chrétien and his former director of operations, surfaces in close connection to the sponsorship initiative.
March 5 — LeFrançois is fired.
March 11 — Allan Cutler, former public works accountant, testifies before the Commission of Inquiry. He places responsibility for the program and its irregularities with Chuck Guité.[3]
March 12 — Vennat is fired.
March 13 — An unidentified whistle-blower reveals that high-ranking government officials, including Jean Pelletier, Alfonso Gagliano, Don Boudria, Denis Coderre, and Marc LeFrançois, had frequent confidential conversations with Pierre Tremblay, head of the Communications Coordination Services Branch of Public Works from 1999 until 2001. The claim is the first direct link between the scandal and the Prime Minister's Office. Coderre and LeFrançois denied the allegation.[4]
March 18 — Gagliano testifies in front of the Public Accounts Committee, a committee of the House of Commons chaired by a member from the Official Opposition. Gagliano denies any involvement by himself or any other politician; he points blame at bureaucrat Chuck Guité.
March 24 — Myriam Bédard testifies at the Public Accounts Committee. In addition to repeating her earlier assertions, she also claims that Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve was given a secret $12 million payoff to wear a Canadian flag logo on his racing suit (however, Villeneuve sharply denies this allegation, calling it "ludicrous"). Bédard also testifies that she once heard that Groupaction was involved in drug trafficking.
April 2 — Previously confidential testimony from a 2002 inquiry into suspicious Groupaction contracts is made public. In it, Guité admits to having bent the rules in his handling of the advertising contracts but defends his actions as excusable given the circumstances, saying, "We were basically at war trying to save the country... When you're at war, you drop the book and the rules and you don't give your plan to the opposition."[5]
April 22 — Guité testifies. He claims Auditor-General Fraser is misguided in delivering the report, as it distorts what actually went on; he claims the office of then-Finance Minister Paul Martin lobbied for input in the choice of firms given contracts; and he denies that any political interference occurred, because his bureaucratic office made all final decisions. Opposition MPs decry his comments as "nonsense" and claim he is covering up for the government.[6] The French language press gives a very different account of Guité's testimony; a La Presse headline states that Guité is involving the Cabinet office of Paul Martin.[7]
May 6 — An official announces the inquiry deadline is set for December 2005.
May 10 — Jean Brault, president of Groupaction, and Charles Guité arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for fraud in connection with the sponsorship scandal.
May 23 — Paul Martin requests that the Governor General dissolve Parliament and call a federal election.
May 28 — Alfonso Gagliano launches a lawsuit for $4.5 million against Prime Minister Paul Martin and the federal government for defamation and wrongful dismissal claiming that he has been unfairly made to pay for the sponsorship scandal.
June 28 — The Liberals win 135 of 308 seats in the 2004 election, forming the first minority government in almost 25 years.
September — First public hearings of the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities begin in Ottawa. They will move to Montreal in February 2005 and conclude in the Spring.
December — In a year-end media interview, Justice John Gomery refers to Chrétien's distribution of autographed golf balls as "small-town cheap", which later prompts an indignant response from the former prime minister.
[edit] 2005March 29 — A publication ban is imposed by the Gomery commission on Jean Brault's testimony.
April 2 — The United States blogger Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters[8] discloses information about Brault's testimony, countervening the Canadian publication ban. Until the revocation of the ban five days later, the publication itself was a news event in Canada, with Canadian news media struggling to report on the disclosure without putting themselves at risk of legal action.[9]
April 7 — The publication ban on Jean Brault's testimony is lifted by the Gomery commission. Brault's testimony triggers a rapid shift in the public opinion of the Liberal Party. Whether or not the government is defeated in the imminent confidence vote, most political pundits are predicting an election call this year—many predicting by this summer.
April 20 — The official opposition party, the Conservatives, puts forward a non-confidence motion in the government. Due to procedural rules, this vote which was to be held May 3 was postponed. If a non-confidence motion passes, the government will be dissolved and a new election will be held.
April 21 — A national televised appearance by Prime Minister Paul Martin discusses the scandal. This was highly unusual in Canadian politics. The Prime Minister announced that a general election will be called within 30 days of Justice Gomery's final report. Martin emphasised that he was trying to clean up the scandal and had not been involved. In the following rebuttal speeches, Jack Layton of the New Democratic Party offered to keep the parliament alive, provided the Liberal Party makes some major concessions in the budget in their favor. However, the other Opposition parties were still ready to bring down the government and force an election before the summer.
May 10 — The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois win a vote, by 153-150, in the House of Commons on what they argue is equivalent to a no confidence motion; three MPs are absent due to health reasons. The motion ordered a committee of the House of Commons to declare that the government should resign rather than being a direct motion on the House's confidence in the government. The opposition parties and several constitutional experts claim that the motion is binding and that the government must resign or immediately seek the confidence of the House; the government and several opposing constitutional experts suggest that this motion was merely procedural and therefore cannot be considered a matter of confidence. Ultimately, only the Governor General has the power to force an election, it is not clear what actions tradition would require her to take in such a case.[10]
May 11 — The government tells the House that it will consider a vote to be held on May 19 on the budget, including the concessions which the Liberal party ceded to the NDP in turn for their support on it, to be a matter of confidence. The government refuses to directly seek the confidence of the House and blocks the Opposition from putting any vote to the House; in consequence the Opposition continues a policy of non-cooperation and disruption of the other business of the House.
May 17 — Conservative MP Belinda Stronach crosses the floor to the Liberals and is simultaneously given the Cabinet position of Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development as well as made Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal. Prime Minister Paul Martin states that Stronach will be responsible for implementing the recommendations of the Gomery commission, a statement that Opposition critics claim casts doubt on the sincerity of the Prime Minister's promise for an election within 30 days of the tabling of Justice Gomery's report. For some time afterwards, media attention is focused away from Gomery testimony onto Stronach's move and its implications on the budget vote.
May 19 — The government passes the first of two budget bills easily after the Conservatives promise support, but the second bill with the NDP concessions ends as a cliffhanger. Speaker Peter Milliken breaks a 152-152 tie in favour of the bill, keeping the government alive.
November 1 — Gomery's preliminary report into the scandal is released. The report criticizes Chrétien and his office for setting up the sponsorship program in a way as to invite abuse, and Gagliano as the Minister of Public Works for his behaviour. Prime Minister Paul Martin is formally cleared of any responsibility or wrongdoing in the matter as Gomery found his role as Finance Minister was to set up a 'fiscal framework' at the instruction of then Prime Minister Chrétien, but did not have oversight on the spending of the funds after they were passed to Chrétien's Prime Minister's Office.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe announce their intention to try to force a pre-Christmas election; however, New Democrat leader Jack Layton says that he will try to have the Liberals implement some New Democrat policies, particularly with regard to a ban on private healthcare as the price for his support in keeping the government up.
November 28 — The Liberals refuse to agree to the New Democrats' terms and the latter withdraws their support. The Liberals also turn down a motion sponsored by the three opposition parties which would have scheduled a February election in return for passing several key pieces of legislation. As a result, the Liberal government loses a confidence vote in the House by 171 to 133, resulting in the fall of the minority government and triggering a mid-January election after a long holiday election campaign that is expected to be dirty and hard-fought.
[edit] 2006
Gomery Commission hearings in MontrealJanuary 23 — After twelve consecutive years in power, the ruling Liberals are defeated in the general election. The Conservatives have enough seats to form a minority government. Paul Martin immediately announces that he will not contest the next federal election as party leader, and Bill Graham is appointed interim parliamentary leader.
February 1 — Justice John Gomery delivered his final report consisting mostly of recommendations for changes to the civil service and its relation to government.
February 6 — The new Conservative government, led by Stephen Harper, are officially sworn in as the new government in Canada. Stephen Harper becomes Canada's 22nd Prime Minister.
March 18 — Paul Martin resigns the leadership of the Liberal party, handing the post to Bill Graham for the interim.
May 5 — after pleading guilty to five counts of fraud, Jean Brault was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
May 11 — the Conservative government is reportedly preparing to file a lawsuit against the Liberal party.[11]
June 6 — Chuck Guité was convicted on five counts of defrauding the Government of Canada; on June 19, he was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
[edit] 2007April 27 — Jean Lafleur, after returning from two years in Belize, pleaded guilty to 28 counts of fraud. He was sentenced to 42 months in prison, and was ordered to repay $1.6 million to the federal government.
[edit] Political consequencesWithin the Liberal Party during 2004-05, revelations of scandal and the subsequent Gomery Commission highlighted the rift between the "Chrétien camp" and "Martin camp". These two groups had been fighting perhaps even prior to Chrétien's election as party leader in 1990; the Chrétienites were descended from long-serving Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau while the Martinites were linked to the right-leaning (and briefly Prime Minister) John Turner.[citation needed]
The Liberals, for the most part, have weathered the damage from the scandal[according to whom?] by pointing out the conclusions of reports of the Auditor General and the Gomery Commission: misdeeds were committed by a small, isolated, and corrupt subculture within the previous Liberal government and in particular the PMO of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.[citation needed]
Similarly, supporters of then Prime Minister Paul Martin argued that the "culture of corruption" was a byproduct of Chrétien's leadership and that any malicious elements had been purged, both from the government and the party, since the discoveries of wrongdoing. When he assumed the leadership of the party and then the country, Martin made an active effort to dissociate the Liberals and himself from Chrétien's supporters, arguing these individuals were implicated in the scandal, thus hoping to illustrate that the Liberal Party bore little or no connection or resemblance to party elements involved in the sponsorship program.[citation needed]
Martin supporters contend that many Chrétien loyalists left with or shortly after Chrétien left in 2004, before the scandal was revealed. They point to the departure of John Manley and other Chrétien cabinet ministers from the party, many of whom did not stand for candidacy in the 2004 federal election. Martin's supporters assert those expunged from the party were ejected for their impropriety and not for their leadership affiliations.[citation needed]
Chrétien supporters alleged that Martin used the scandal as an excuse to remove Chrétien supporters from their positions in government and the party. Often cited examples include Martin's major cabinet change after taking power and Martin's refusal to sign nomination papers of MPs who were known to support Chrétien, with many of these controversial moves occurring before the sponsorship scandal broke out.[citation needed]
The Chrétien camp also contended that the Gomery Commission was established to make them look bad, and that it was an unfair investigation. Martin's supporters responded to such allegations by pointing out that the commission was set up to search for facts under independent judicial oversight. They also argued that Justice Gomery's commission operated without undue influence from Martin or anyone outside of the investigation, having all due and necessary authority to investigate and draw conclusions on the matter.[citation needed] Chrétien's supporters were outraged[according to whom?] that they shouldered all of the blame for the scandal, even though the commission was directed not to make any conclusions or recommendations on criminal charges or civil liability.[citation needed]
Detractors of Martin's innocence point out that he had a particularly powerful role in government, not only because of being Finance Minister, but also because he had significant support within the party due to his strong showing in the 1990 leadership contest. This forced Chrétien to make concessions to Martin, allowing the latter to wield considerable influence. Another cited example was a speech that Martin made in 1995, stating that separatism would be bad for Quebec's economy, which damaged support for federalism in the province and relegated Martin to a backroom role in fighting the referendum.[citation needed]
Many[who?] inside and outside of the Liberal Party contended that, going into the 2006 election, Martin-vs.-Chrétien issues are effectively behind the Liberals. There were few publicized nomination battles, although some Chrétien strategists complained that they have been left out.[citation needed] Formally, the two leaders have remained publicly respectful of each other.[citation needed]
Critics of the Liberal Party and even former Liberals, like Sheila Copps, argued that the sponsorship scandal has highlighted a "culture of corruption" within the Canadian government.[citation needed] Some Conservative critics alleged that the problems within the Liberal Party are so systematic it could only be effectively reversed (or cured) by a change of government and argue that the Liberals, who had been in power for over a decade, were too arrogant and complacent to be trusted with instituting necessary reforms.[citation needed] The sponsorship crisis thus became a key election issue, and remained a rallying-point for conservative opponents of the Liberals in the 2006 federal election.
Quebec sovereigntists—led by the Bloc Québécois in the federal parliament and the provincial Parti Québécois—have cited the scandal as "proof" of institutional corruption and dysfunctionality of the federal government. Critics have argued that the entire sponsorship scandal, originally intended to encourage pro-Canada sentiment in Quebec, has done exactly the opposite and instead, emboldened separatist forces in Quebec: polls before the election indicated increased support for sovereignty, rising to approximately 53% (around 19 December 2005).[citation needed] Ultimately support for separatism declined and the Bloc Québécois lost both popular vote and seats in the Parliament of Canada in the 2006 Federal Election.[citation needed]
The New Democratic Party (NDP) caucus of Jack Layton has also been criticized for alleging major corruption in the Liberal Party of Canada, while simultaneously working with the Martin government to achieve NDP policy objectives.[citation needed]
Unlike the 2004 Election, the Conservatives did not spend the initial part of the campaign attacking the Liberals for Adscam. The sponsorship scandal was brought back to national attention after an NDP member tipped off the RCMP to launch a criminal investigation into the Finance Department, regarding allegations of insider trading from the leaking of the news on the taxable status of income trusts.[citation needed]
The Conservative minority government of Stephen Harper introduced the Federal Accountability Act which included new lobbying rules and electoral law reform; it was granted royal assent on December 12, 2006. Still unfulfilled are promises for a Public Appointments Commission and registrar for lobbyists which is an independent officer of Parliament [1].
Communication Canada was created after the results of the 1995 Quebec referendum to increase intergovernmental communications. The agency was connected to the scandal and labelled as a propaganda machine and eventually disbanded in 2004.[citation needed]
[edit] See alsoCanadian political scandals
Politics of Canada
Gomery Commission
[edit] References^ CBC.ca News Indepth: Federal Sponsorship Scandal
^ National Post article
^ CBC.ca News Indepth: Federal Sponsorship Scandal Timeline
^ Toronto Star article
^ Globe and Mail insider edition article
^ Toronto Star article
^ Cyberpresse article
^ Captain's Quarters posting
^ Edmonton Sun article
^ CBC article: Liberals will not quit despite losing vote
^ Government may sue Liberals for sponsorship funds: report
[edit] Further readingGomery, John (2005). Who is Responsible? Phase 1 Report. Ottawa, ON: Public Works and Government Services Canada. ISBN 0-660-19532-1. http://www.gomery.ca/en/phase1report/index.asp.
[edit] External linksWho Is Responsible: Phase 1 Report
CBC.ca Indepth: Federal sponsorship scandal
2003 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada
Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities
Testimony from Jean Brault on the activities of the Government in the Sponsorship Program
Official transcripts of the hearings available on the website of the Gomery Commission
Liberals brace for release of Gomery report on sponsorship scandal
Whistleblowers Canada: Information regarding the inadequacy of legislation introduced in response to the scandal
Scandal nomenclature contest
Maple Leaf Web: Ethics & Government in Canada
Maple Leaf Web: Auditor General Report on Sponsorship Scandal
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal"
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This article is about the "Sponsorship Scandal" in Canada.
Contents
1 Involved parties
2 Timeline
2.1 1995
2.2 1996
2.3 2000
2.4 2004
2.5 2005
2.6 2006
2.7 2007
3 Political consequences
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
The sponsorship scandal, "AdScam", "Sponsorship" or Sponsorgate, is a scandal that came as a result of a Canadian federal government "sponsorship program" in the province of Quebec and involving the Liberal Party of Canada, which was in power from 1993 to 2006. The program was originally established as an effort to raise awareness of the Government of Canada's contributions to Quebec industries and other activities in order to counter the actions of the Parti Québécois government of the province that worked to promote Quebec independence.
The program ran from 1996 until 2004, when broad corruption was discovered in its operations and the program was discontinued. Illicit and even illegal activities within the administration of the program were revealed, involving misuse and misdirection of public funds intended for government advertising in Quebec. Such misdirections included sponsorship money awarded to ad firms in return for little or no work, which firms maintained Liberal organizers or fundraisers on their payrolls or donated back part of the money to the Liberal Party. The resulting investigations and scandal affected the Liberal Party of Canada and the then-government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. It was an ongoing affair for years, but rose to national prominence in early 2004 after the program was examined by Sheila Fraser, the federal auditor general. Her revelations led to the government establishing the Gomery Commission to conduct a public inquiry and file a report on the matter. The official title of this inquiry was the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities.
In the national spotlight, the scandal became a significant factor in the lead-up to the 2006 federal election where after more than twelve years in power the Liberals were defeated by the Conservatives, who formed a minority government that was sworn in February 2006.
[edit] Involved parties This section requires expansion.
Jean Chrétien — Prime Minister of Canada at the time the Sponsorship Program was established and operated. The Gomery Commission, First Phase Report which assigned blame for the Sponsorship scandal cast most of the indemnity for misspent public funds, fraud on Chrétien and his Prime Minister's Office staff, though it cleared Chrétien himself of direct wrongdoing.
Jean Pelletier — Prime Minister's chief of staff and later chairman of VIA Rail. VIA Rail was accused of mishandling sponsorship deals, though mostly not under Pelletier's tenure.
Alfonso Gagliano — Minister of Public Works, and thus in charge of the program. Also the political minister for Quebec.
André Ouellet — member of Prime Minister Chrétien's Cabinet, longtime Liberal politician and later head of Canada Post, who was also accused of violating sponsorship rules.
Chuck Guité — bureaucrat in charge of the sponsorship program. Arrested for fraud by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) - convicted on five counts on June 6, 2006.
Jean Brault — head of Groupaction Marketing, one of the companies to which deals were directed. Arrested for fraud by the RCMP, he pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud and on May 5, 2006, was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Jacques Corriveau — Liberal organizer and head of Pluridesign to which millions in sponsorship dollars were directed.
Paul Martin — former Prime Minister of Canada. He was Minister of Finance, and Senior Minister from Quebec during most of the years the program occurred. When he became Prime Minister in December 2003, he claimed that he put a halt to it. He also set up the Gomery Commission which later cleared him of formal responsibility by Justice Gomery in his November 2005 'First Phase Report' of the Gomery Commission. The Gomery findings claimed that Martin, as finance minister, established a 'fiscal framework' but he did not have oversight as to the dispersal of the funds once they were apportioned to Chrétien's Prime Minister's Office. A report on the issue by the Auditor General's Office of Sheila Fraser came to the same conclusion. Nonetheless, Martin was frequently accused of tying Gomery's hands and using the sponsorship scandal as an excuse to purge the Liberals of members who supported Chrétien. The scandal played a factor in the federal election of 2006 and the fall of the Liberal Government. Shortly thereafter, Martin resigned from the liberal party leadership.
Joe Morselli — Liberal Party fundraiser. Jean Brault testified that the money exchanges were with Morselli.
Jean Lafleur — former CEO of Lafleur Communication Marketing Inc. One of the advertising executives that accepted money from the federal government. Pleaded guilty to 28 counts of fraud.
Allan Cutler — former civil servant and whistleblower who reported anomalies in a Canadian sponsorship program, triggering the Scandal.
[edit] Timeline[edit] 1995Allan Cutler first attempts to raise concerns about bid-rigging and political interference to the attention of senior management at the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada.
[edit] 1996Ernst & Young conducts an audit of contracting and tendering practices. The initial draft, which identified recurring problems and the risk of legal action, was altered in the final report. Ernst & Young representative Deanne Monaghan later indicated that she did not recall why the report had been changed to remove those references.[1]
[edit] 2000February — An internal audit reveals that none of the recommendations of the 1996 Ernst & Young audit have been implemented.
September — Minister Alfonso Gagliano receives the 2000 audit and suspends the Sponsorship Program. Later that year, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada begins investigating the program.
[edit] 2004February 10 — Auditor General Sheila Fraser's report reveals up to $100 million of the $250 million sponsorship program was awarded to Liberal-friendly advertising firms and Crown corporations for little or no work.
February 11 — Prime Minister Paul Martin orders a Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities. The Commission of Inquiry will be headed by Justice John H. Gomery. Martin fires Alfonso Gagliano from his post in Denmark. Martin asserts that he had no knowledge of the scandal prior to the Auditor General's report.
February 13 — The National Post newspaper publishes a 2002 letter leaked to it by an unidentified third party, between the Liberal Party's then National Policy Chairman and Paul Martin, urging Martin to stop partisan financial abuses in the Sponsorship Program, thereby casting doubt on Martin's defence of personal ignorance.[2]
February 24 — Martin suspends Business Development Bank of Canada president Michel Vennat, VIA Rail president Marc LeFrançois and Canada Post president André Ouellet giving each an ultimatum to defend themselves or face further disciplinary action.
February 27 — Past Olympic gold medallist Myriam Bédard reveals she was pushed from her job at VIA Rail for questioning billing practices. VIA Rail chairman Jean Pelletier publicly belittles Bédard and calls her pitiful.
March 1 — Pelletier is fired.
March 3 — Jean Carle, a close confidant of Chrétien and his former director of operations, surfaces in close connection to the sponsorship initiative.
March 5 — LeFrançois is fired.
March 11 — Allan Cutler, former public works accountant, testifies before the Commission of Inquiry. He places responsibility for the program and its irregularities with Chuck Guité.[3]
March 12 — Vennat is fired.
March 13 — An unidentified whistle-blower reveals that high-ranking government officials, including Jean Pelletier, Alfonso Gagliano, Don Boudria, Denis Coderre, and Marc LeFrançois, had frequent confidential conversations with Pierre Tremblay, head of the Communications Coordination Services Branch of Public Works from 1999 until 2001. The claim is the first direct link between the scandal and the Prime Minister's Office. Coderre and LeFrançois denied the allegation.[4]
March 18 — Gagliano testifies in front of the Public Accounts Committee, a committee of the House of Commons chaired by a member from the Official Opposition. Gagliano denies any involvement by himself or any other politician; he points blame at bureaucrat Chuck Guité.
March 24 — Myriam Bédard testifies at the Public Accounts Committee. In addition to repeating her earlier assertions, she also claims that Formula One driver Jacques Villeneuve was given a secret $12 million payoff to wear a Canadian flag logo on his racing suit (however, Villeneuve sharply denies this allegation, calling it "ludicrous"). Bédard also testifies that she once heard that Groupaction was involved in drug trafficking.
April 2 — Previously confidential testimony from a 2002 inquiry into suspicious Groupaction contracts is made public. In it, Guité admits to having bent the rules in his handling of the advertising contracts but defends his actions as excusable given the circumstances, saying, "We were basically at war trying to save the country... When you're at war, you drop the book and the rules and you don't give your plan to the opposition."[5]
April 22 — Guité testifies. He claims Auditor-General Fraser is misguided in delivering the report, as it distorts what actually went on; he claims the office of then-Finance Minister Paul Martin lobbied for input in the choice of firms given contracts; and he denies that any political interference occurred, because his bureaucratic office made all final decisions. Opposition MPs decry his comments as "nonsense" and claim he is covering up for the government.[6] The French language press gives a very different account of Guité's testimony; a La Presse headline states that Guité is involving the Cabinet office of Paul Martin.[7]
May 6 — An official announces the inquiry deadline is set for December 2005.
May 10 — Jean Brault, president of Groupaction, and Charles Guité arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for fraud in connection with the sponsorship scandal.
May 23 — Paul Martin requests that the Governor General dissolve Parliament and call a federal election.
May 28 — Alfonso Gagliano launches a lawsuit for $4.5 million against Prime Minister Paul Martin and the federal government for defamation and wrongful dismissal claiming that he has been unfairly made to pay for the sponsorship scandal.
June 28 — The Liberals win 135 of 308 seats in the 2004 election, forming the first minority government in almost 25 years.
September — First public hearings of the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities begin in Ottawa. They will move to Montreal in February 2005 and conclude in the Spring.
December — In a year-end media interview, Justice John Gomery refers to Chrétien's distribution of autographed golf balls as "small-town cheap", which later prompts an indignant response from the former prime minister.
[edit] 2005March 29 — A publication ban is imposed by the Gomery commission on Jean Brault's testimony.
April 2 — The United States blogger Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters[8] discloses information about Brault's testimony, countervening the Canadian publication ban. Until the revocation of the ban five days later, the publication itself was a news event in Canada, with Canadian news media struggling to report on the disclosure without putting themselves at risk of legal action.[9]
April 7 — The publication ban on Jean Brault's testimony is lifted by the Gomery commission. Brault's testimony triggers a rapid shift in the public opinion of the Liberal Party. Whether or not the government is defeated in the imminent confidence vote, most political pundits are predicting an election call this year—many predicting by this summer.
April 20 — The official opposition party, the Conservatives, puts forward a non-confidence motion in the government. Due to procedural rules, this vote which was to be held May 3 was postponed. If a non-confidence motion passes, the government will be dissolved and a new election will be held.
April 21 — A national televised appearance by Prime Minister Paul Martin discusses the scandal. This was highly unusual in Canadian politics. The Prime Minister announced that a general election will be called within 30 days of Justice Gomery's final report. Martin emphasised that he was trying to clean up the scandal and had not been involved. In the following rebuttal speeches, Jack Layton of the New Democratic Party offered to keep the parliament alive, provided the Liberal Party makes some major concessions in the budget in their favor. However, the other Opposition parties were still ready to bring down the government and force an election before the summer.
May 10 — The Conservatives and Bloc Québécois win a vote, by 153-150, in the House of Commons on what they argue is equivalent to a no confidence motion; three MPs are absent due to health reasons. The motion ordered a committee of the House of Commons to declare that the government should resign rather than being a direct motion on the House's confidence in the government. The opposition parties and several constitutional experts claim that the motion is binding and that the government must resign or immediately seek the confidence of the House; the government and several opposing constitutional experts suggest that this motion was merely procedural and therefore cannot be considered a matter of confidence. Ultimately, only the Governor General has the power to force an election, it is not clear what actions tradition would require her to take in such a case.[10]
May 11 — The government tells the House that it will consider a vote to be held on May 19 on the budget, including the concessions which the Liberal party ceded to the NDP in turn for their support on it, to be a matter of confidence. The government refuses to directly seek the confidence of the House and blocks the Opposition from putting any vote to the House; in consequence the Opposition continues a policy of non-cooperation and disruption of the other business of the House.
May 17 — Conservative MP Belinda Stronach crosses the floor to the Liberals and is simultaneously given the Cabinet position of Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development as well as made Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal. Prime Minister Paul Martin states that Stronach will be responsible for implementing the recommendations of the Gomery commission, a statement that Opposition critics claim casts doubt on the sincerity of the Prime Minister's promise for an election within 30 days of the tabling of Justice Gomery's report. For some time afterwards, media attention is focused away from Gomery testimony onto Stronach's move and its implications on the budget vote.
May 19 — The government passes the first of two budget bills easily after the Conservatives promise support, but the second bill with the NDP concessions ends as a cliffhanger. Speaker Peter Milliken breaks a 152-152 tie in favour of the bill, keeping the government alive.
November 1 — Gomery's preliminary report into the scandal is released. The report criticizes Chrétien and his office for setting up the sponsorship program in a way as to invite abuse, and Gagliano as the Minister of Public Works for his behaviour. Prime Minister Paul Martin is formally cleared of any responsibility or wrongdoing in the matter as Gomery found his role as Finance Minister was to set up a 'fiscal framework' at the instruction of then Prime Minister Chrétien, but did not have oversight on the spending of the funds after they were passed to Chrétien's Prime Minister's Office.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe announce their intention to try to force a pre-Christmas election; however, New Democrat leader Jack Layton says that he will try to have the Liberals implement some New Democrat policies, particularly with regard to a ban on private healthcare as the price for his support in keeping the government up.
November 28 — The Liberals refuse to agree to the New Democrats' terms and the latter withdraws their support. The Liberals also turn down a motion sponsored by the three opposition parties which would have scheduled a February election in return for passing several key pieces of legislation. As a result, the Liberal government loses a confidence vote in the House by 171 to 133, resulting in the fall of the minority government and triggering a mid-January election after a long holiday election campaign that is expected to be dirty and hard-fought.
[edit] 2006
Gomery Commission hearings in MontrealJanuary 23 — After twelve consecutive years in power, the ruling Liberals are defeated in the general election. The Conservatives have enough seats to form a minority government. Paul Martin immediately announces that he will not contest the next federal election as party leader, and Bill Graham is appointed interim parliamentary leader.
February 1 — Justice John Gomery delivered his final report consisting mostly of recommendations for changes to the civil service and its relation to government.
February 6 — The new Conservative government, led by Stephen Harper, are officially sworn in as the new government in Canada. Stephen Harper becomes Canada's 22nd Prime Minister.
March 18 — Paul Martin resigns the leadership of the Liberal party, handing the post to Bill Graham for the interim.
May 5 — after pleading guilty to five counts of fraud, Jean Brault was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
May 11 — the Conservative government is reportedly preparing to file a lawsuit against the Liberal party.[11]
June 6 — Chuck Guité was convicted on five counts of defrauding the Government of Canada; on June 19, he was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
[edit] 2007April 27 — Jean Lafleur, after returning from two years in Belize, pleaded guilty to 28 counts of fraud. He was sentenced to 42 months in prison, and was ordered to repay $1.6 million to the federal government.
[edit] Political consequencesWithin the Liberal Party during 2004-05, revelations of scandal and the subsequent Gomery Commission highlighted the rift between the "Chrétien camp" and "Martin camp". These two groups had been fighting perhaps even prior to Chrétien's election as party leader in 1990; the Chrétienites were descended from long-serving Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau while the Martinites were linked to the right-leaning (and briefly Prime Minister) John Turner.[citation needed]
The Liberals, for the most part, have weathered the damage from the scandal[according to whom?] by pointing out the conclusions of reports of the Auditor General and the Gomery Commission: misdeeds were committed by a small, isolated, and corrupt subculture within the previous Liberal government and in particular the PMO of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.[citation needed]
Similarly, supporters of then Prime Minister Paul Martin argued that the "culture of corruption" was a byproduct of Chrétien's leadership and that any malicious elements had been purged, both from the government and the party, since the discoveries of wrongdoing. When he assumed the leadership of the party and then the country, Martin made an active effort to dissociate the Liberals and himself from Chrétien's supporters, arguing these individuals were implicated in the scandal, thus hoping to illustrate that the Liberal Party bore little or no connection or resemblance to party elements involved in the sponsorship program.[citation needed]
Martin supporters contend that many Chrétien loyalists left with or shortly after Chrétien left in 2004, before the scandal was revealed. They point to the departure of John Manley and other Chrétien cabinet ministers from the party, many of whom did not stand for candidacy in the 2004 federal election. Martin's supporters assert those expunged from the party were ejected for their impropriety and not for their leadership affiliations.[citation needed]
Chrétien supporters alleged that Martin used the scandal as an excuse to remove Chrétien supporters from their positions in government and the party. Often cited examples include Martin's major cabinet change after taking power and Martin's refusal to sign nomination papers of MPs who were known to support Chrétien, with many of these controversial moves occurring before the sponsorship scandal broke out.[citation needed]
The Chrétien camp also contended that the Gomery Commission was established to make them look bad, and that it was an unfair investigation. Martin's supporters responded to such allegations by pointing out that the commission was set up to search for facts under independent judicial oversight. They also argued that Justice Gomery's commission operated without undue influence from Martin or anyone outside of the investigation, having all due and necessary authority to investigate and draw conclusions on the matter.[citation needed] Chrétien's supporters were outraged[according to whom?] that they shouldered all of the blame for the scandal, even though the commission was directed not to make any conclusions or recommendations on criminal charges or civil liability.[citation needed]
Detractors of Martin's innocence point out that he had a particularly powerful role in government, not only because of being Finance Minister, but also because he had significant support within the party due to his strong showing in the 1990 leadership contest. This forced Chrétien to make concessions to Martin, allowing the latter to wield considerable influence. Another cited example was a speech that Martin made in 1995, stating that separatism would be bad for Quebec's economy, which damaged support for federalism in the province and relegated Martin to a backroom role in fighting the referendum.[citation needed]
Many[who?] inside and outside of the Liberal Party contended that, going into the 2006 election, Martin-vs.-Chrétien issues are effectively behind the Liberals. There were few publicized nomination battles, although some Chrétien strategists complained that they have been left out.[citation needed] Formally, the two leaders have remained publicly respectful of each other.[citation needed]
Critics of the Liberal Party and even former Liberals, like Sheila Copps, argued that the sponsorship scandal has highlighted a "culture of corruption" within the Canadian government.[citation needed] Some Conservative critics alleged that the problems within the Liberal Party are so systematic it could only be effectively reversed (or cured) by a change of government and argue that the Liberals, who had been in power for over a decade, were too arrogant and complacent to be trusted with instituting necessary reforms.[citation needed] The sponsorship crisis thus became a key election issue, and remained a rallying-point for conservative opponents of the Liberals in the 2006 federal election.
Quebec sovereigntists—led by the Bloc Québécois in the federal parliament and the provincial Parti Québécois—have cited the scandal as "proof" of institutional corruption and dysfunctionality of the federal government. Critics have argued that the entire sponsorship scandal, originally intended to encourage pro-Canada sentiment in Quebec, has done exactly the opposite and instead, emboldened separatist forces in Quebec: polls before the election indicated increased support for sovereignty, rising to approximately 53% (around 19 December 2005).[citation needed] Ultimately support for separatism declined and the Bloc Québécois lost both popular vote and seats in the Parliament of Canada in the 2006 Federal Election.[citation needed]
The New Democratic Party (NDP) caucus of Jack Layton has also been criticized for alleging major corruption in the Liberal Party of Canada, while simultaneously working with the Martin government to achieve NDP policy objectives.[citation needed]
Unlike the 2004 Election, the Conservatives did not spend the initial part of the campaign attacking the Liberals for Adscam. The sponsorship scandal was brought back to national attention after an NDP member tipped off the RCMP to launch a criminal investigation into the Finance Department, regarding allegations of insider trading from the leaking of the news on the taxable status of income trusts.[citation needed]
The Conservative minority government of Stephen Harper introduced the Federal Accountability Act which included new lobbying rules and electoral law reform; it was granted royal assent on December 12, 2006. Still unfulfilled are promises for a Public Appointments Commission and registrar for lobbyists which is an independent officer of Parliament [1].
Communication Canada was created after the results of the 1995 Quebec referendum to increase intergovernmental communications. The agency was connected to the scandal and labelled as a propaganda machine and eventually disbanded in 2004.[citation needed]
[edit] See alsoCanadian political scandals
Politics of Canada
Gomery Commission
[edit] References^ CBC.ca News Indepth: Federal Sponsorship Scandal
^ National Post article
^ CBC.ca News Indepth: Federal Sponsorship Scandal Timeline
^ Toronto Star article
^ Globe and Mail insider edition article
^ Toronto Star article
^ Cyberpresse article
^ Captain's Quarters posting
^ Edmonton Sun article
^ CBC article: Liberals will not quit despite losing vote
^ Government may sue Liberals for sponsorship funds: report
[edit] Further readingGomery, John (2005). Who is Responsible? Phase 1 Report. Ottawa, ON: Public Works and Government Services Canada. ISBN 0-660-19532-1. http://www.gomery.ca/en/phase1report/index.asp.
[edit] External linksWho Is Responsible: Phase 1 Report
CBC.ca Indepth: Federal sponsorship scandal
2003 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada
Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities
Testimony from Jean Brault on the activities of the Government in the Sponsorship Program
Official transcripts of the hearings available on the website of the Gomery Commission
Liberals brace for release of Gomery report on sponsorship scandal
Whistleblowers Canada: Information regarding the inadequacy of legislation introduced in response to the scandal
Scandal nomenclature contest
Maple Leaf Web: Ethics & Government in Canada
Maple Leaf Web: Auditor General Report on Sponsorship Scandal
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship_scandal"
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Tuesday, March 8, 2011
James Travers award-winning column
By James Travers Published On Sat Apr 4 2009
National Affairs Columnist
OTTAWA–For a foreign correspondent reporting some of the world's grimmest stories, Canada in the '80s was more than a faraway home. Seen from the flattering distance of Africa, this country was a model democracy. Reflected in its distant mirror was everything wrong with what was then called the Third World. From Cape to Cairo, power was in the hands of Big Men. Police and army held control. Institutions were empty shells. Corruption was as accepted as the steeped-in-pessimism proposition that it's a duty to clan as well as to family to grab whatever has value before the state inevitably returns to dust.
By contrast and comparison, Canada was a cold but shimmering Camelot. Ballots, not bullets, changed governments. Men and women in uniform were discreet servants of the state. Institutions were structurally sound. Corruption, a part of politics everywhere, was firmly enough in check that scandals were aberrations demanding public scrutiny and sometimes even justice.
Canada today is not Africa then or now. Our wealth and health, and our communal respect for legal, civil and human rights position this favoured country on a higher plane. Still, 10 years of close observation and some 1,500 Star columns lead to an unsettling conclusion: Africa, despite popular perception, despite the Somalias and Zimbabwes, is moving in one direction, Canada in another. Read the headlines, examine the evidence, plot the trend line dots and find that as Africans – from turnaround Ghana to impoverished Malawi – struggle to strengthen their democracies, Canadians are letting theirs slip.
There, dictatorships are now more the exception than the rule and accountability is accepted as a precondition for stability. Here, power and control are increasingly concentrated and accountability honoured more in promise than practice. Canadian politicians flout the will of voters and parties. Once-solid institutions are being pulled apart by rising complexity and falling legitimacy. Scandals come and go without full public exposure or cleansing political punishment. If not yet lost, Camelot is under siege.
Laughter or disbelief would have been my '80s response to any gloomy prediction that within the next 20 odd years Canada's iconic police force would twist the outcome of a federal election. I would have rejected out of hand the suggestion that Parliament would become a largely ceremonial body incapable of performing its defining functions of safeguarding public spending and holding ministers to account. I would have treated as ridiculous any forecast that the senior bureaucracy would become politicized, that many of the powers of a monarch would flow from Parliament to the prime minister or that the authority of the Governor General, the de facto head of state, would be openly challenged.
Yet every one has happened and each has chipped away another brick of the democratic foundations underpinning Parliament. Incrementally and by stealth, Canada has become a situational democracy. What matters now is what works. Precedents, procedures and even laws have given way to the political doctrine of expediency.
No single party or prime minister is solely to blame. Since Pierre Trudeau first dismissed backbenchers as nobodies and began drawing power out of Parliament and into his office, all have contributed to the creep toward a more authoritarian, less accountable Canadian polity.
Some of the changes are understandable. Government evolves with its environment, and that environment has become more complex even as the controls have become wobblier, less connected. The terrible twins of globalization and subsidiarity – the sound theory that services are most efficiently delivered by the administrative level closest to the user – now sorely test the ability of national legislatures to respond to challenges at home and abroad. Think of it this way: Trade, the economy and the environment have all gone global while the things that matter most to most of us – health, education and the quality of city life – are the guarded responsibility of provinces and municipalities.
Politics and politicians being what they are, the reflex response is to grasp for all remaining power. Once secured, it can be used to exercise political will more easily by overruling rules and rewriting or simply ignoring laws. Power alone is effective in cross-cutting through the silo walls that isolate departments and frustrate co-ordinated policies. Important to all administrations, unfettered manoeuvring room is that much more important to minority governments desperate to maximize limited options and minimize opposition influence.
Good for prime ministers, that's not nearly good enough for the rest of us. It fuels an inexorable power drift to the opaque political centre, creating what Donald Savoie, Canada's eminent chronicler of Westminster parliaments, calls "court government." It's his clear and credible view that between elections, prime ministers now operate in the omnipotent manner of kings. Surrounded by subservient cabinet barons, fawning unelected courtiers and answerable to no one, they manage the affairs of state more or less as they please.
Prime ministers are freeing themselves from the chains that once bound them to voters, Parliament, cabinet and party. From bottom to top, from citizen to head of state, every link in those chains is stressed, fractured or broken.
One man's short political career helps explain how those connections fail. David Emerson, a respected former forestry executive and top B.C. bureaucrat, is recalled as one of Paul Martin's most competent ministers. Almost forgotten now is his corrosive effect on public trust.
In 2006, Emerson ran for re-election in Vancouver-Kingsway, winning easily as a Liberal. Weeks after promising to be Stephen Harper's "worst nightmare," Emerson was named to the Conservative cabinet in the trade portfolio he had long wanted and was well-suited for. His rationale was simple: There's no point in being in the capital if there's no real possibility of influencing the nation's course.
Emerson is an honest man and his motives genuine. But in severing the link between ballots and voter choice, he made nonsense of the electoral process.
Emerson was not alone in dripping acid on that rare winter election. But where he applied an eyedropper, then RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli emptied a bucket. With Liberals nursing an opinion-poll lead and Martin on track for a second minority, Zaccardelli dropped an unprecedented, still unexplained bombshell. In a private letter to the NDP, one the RCMP went to extraordinary lengths to ensure became public, the force confirmed its criminal investigation into rumoured leaks of the Liberal decision not to tax income trusts.
Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan candidly identifies that letter as the election's tipping point. Liberal scandals and ethics soared again to the top of voter minds, sending Martin tumbling and Liberals packing.
No political malfeasance was found – one bureaucrat was charged with gaining personal benefit. More remarkably, neither Zaccardelli nor the RCMP has been forced to fully deconstruct such an egregious intervention in the electoral process. To their lasting shame, all three federal parties, each to protect its interests and minimize embarrassment, chose to leave hanging the rotten odour of banana republic politics. Zaccardelli, defrocked for conflicting testimony in the Maher Arar affair, is in France, safe and quiet in an Interpol sinecure.
If Zaccardelli's intervention was wrong, Emerson's analysis was right: Being a bright, competent and energized backbencher in an increasingly ritualistic, theatrical and impotent House of Commons is an exercise in futility.
Parliament's problem is that it is patently dysfunctional. Its list of recent failures is long and instructive. It didn't notice the millions of Quebec sponsorship dollars shifting from the treasury to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's office or the runaway costs of the Liberal long-gun registry. Starved of resources and already ineffectual, its committees became a standing joke when Conservatives secretly wrote a 200-page manual to discourage curiosity about, say, alleged attempts to buy dying Chuck Cadman's Commons vote, or the ruling party's suspect in-and-out campaign money-laundering scheme.
It's so essential for the ruling party to keep Parliament in the dark that its independent officers are now forced to struggle for the funds and freedom to do their jobs. Need proof? Liberals and Tories nurtured a cottage industry that taught how to hide public information vital to open democracy by, among other tricks, insisting on untraceable verbal reports and scribbling sensitive information on removable Post-it notes. Conservatives in opposition promised to create a budget officer to follow how Ottawa spends hundreds of billions. In power they are yanking the leash on Kevin Page, the newest watchdog.
Given those frustrations – and others ranging from voting as the party demands, not as their conscience dictates, to the growing irrelevance of the Commons as a forum for shaping public policy – it's hardly surprising that most MPs, like David Emerson, want to be where the action is – in cabinet. Except that it's not.
Strong cabinets are dusty relics. Long gone are the days when powerful regional ministers could flex their muscles with prime ministers who were merely first among equals. Under Chrétien, cabinets became little more than focus groups. Stephen Harper is going farther, making most ministers anonymous and keeping others silent when tough questions are asked.
Far more powerful than ministers are the political professionals who form a protective inner circle beholden only to the prime minister, not voters. Those appointed apparatchiks are now so entrenched that even senior ministers – Martin's deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan was one – have trouble penetrating the barrier around "The Boss."
So who influences the prime minister, who moulds the putty of public policy? Well it's certainly not deputy ministers, those non-partisan civil servants who once took personal pride in speaking truth to power and kept resignations ready for the moment ministers crossed the line separating public interest from partisan advantage. For mandarins, Job One is no longer providing policy options, it's protecting ministers and the prime minister from political blowback. How much that's changed is measured by last year's report on the leak of a sensitive Canadian diplomatic memo suggesting Barack Obama was saying one thing publicly and another privately about renegotiating free trade.
In finding no culprit, an investigation led by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Ottawa's top public servant, pointed fingers at bureaucrats for circulating the memo too widely. But as the Star exposed at the time, civil servants didn't leak. It was political operatives in the Prime Minister's Office and in Canada's Washington embassy who recklessly jeopardized this country's interests to assist U.S. Republicans. Once again, the guilty went free.
If not Parliament, ministers or mandarins, who can hold the Prime Minister accountable? Apparently not political parties. On their way to their party's Winnipeg convention last year Conservatives, those grassroots activists who planted the seeds of the Reform movement and nurtured them until they grew into a government, were told they had become only one among many "stakeholders." Then, in a cameo convention appearance, the Prime Minister broke the news that hard times rendered the party's defining conservative framework at least temporarily null and void.
Liberals, facing a crisis of their own, responded with even more extreme pragmatism. Having reached the conclusion Stéphane Dion had to be replaced before Parliament reconvened for a critical January session, Liberals bent, folded and mutilated party rules to narrow the leadership contenders to one and anoint Michael Ignatieff interim chief. Whatever the urgency or justification, chattering-class Liberals effectively stripped the rank and file of the right and responsibility to choose a leader.
With parties pushed to the sidelines, only the Governor General remains as a political check on the prime minister. But even that control is suspect after last year's pre-Christmas coalition crisis. Here's how far outspoken minister John Baird said Conservatives were willing to go to hang on to power. "I think what we want to do is basically take a time out and go over the heads of the members of Parliament, go over the heads, frankly, of the Governor General, go right to the Canadian people."
Going over the head of the de facto head of state is a radical notion. But so, too, is the accelerating erosion of Parliament, cabinet, independent oversight and political parties. Extreme is now ho-hum in a country where the prime minister can override his own law to force an election, where accountability is little more than a campaign bumper sticker, where the police play politics and where there is no connection between scandal and punishment for those in privileged places.
Without meaningful engagement, participatory democracy is an oxymoron. Why vote if the winning candidate then switches sides? Why be a member of a powerless Parliament? Why be a minister in a cabinet without influence or a mandarin in a politically polluted bureaucracy? Why join a party to be spectator?
Responses can be found in the record low turnout of the last election. Or the dwindling number who consider federal politics relevant to real life or bother to join parties.
Fortunately, there are fixes. As Barack Obama proved in the U.S presidential campaign – and Premier Dalton McGuinty learned in Ontario when teenagers used Facebook to drive proposed drivers' licence restrictions into a dead end – the combination of motivated citizens and enabling technology is extraordinary.
If mad-as-hell voters can take back a riding, as they did in Vancouver by rejecting Emerson's adopted party, then surely MPs can recapture control of Parliament. It's possible, too, that ministers, bureaucrats and police officers can be forcefully reminded that their public duty is to the people, not to politicians. Even prime ministers can be told they are not monarchs.
Appealing as it sounds, advocacy requires effort. It's so much easier to go with the flow, to let situational democracy evolve with each reflex, stopgap, jerry-rigged response to every new policy demand and political threat. But that leads away from accountability and toward the Big Man culture that Africa is finally throwing off and has no place in Canada.
If war is too serious to leave to generals, then surely democracy is too important to delegate to politicians.
National Affairs Columnist
OTTAWA–For a foreign correspondent reporting some of the world's grimmest stories, Canada in the '80s was more than a faraway home. Seen from the flattering distance of Africa, this country was a model democracy. Reflected in its distant mirror was everything wrong with what was then called the Third World. From Cape to Cairo, power was in the hands of Big Men. Police and army held control. Institutions were empty shells. Corruption was as accepted as the steeped-in-pessimism proposition that it's a duty to clan as well as to family to grab whatever has value before the state inevitably returns to dust.
By contrast and comparison, Canada was a cold but shimmering Camelot. Ballots, not bullets, changed governments. Men and women in uniform were discreet servants of the state. Institutions were structurally sound. Corruption, a part of politics everywhere, was firmly enough in check that scandals were aberrations demanding public scrutiny and sometimes even justice.
Canada today is not Africa then or now. Our wealth and health, and our communal respect for legal, civil and human rights position this favoured country on a higher plane. Still, 10 years of close observation and some 1,500 Star columns lead to an unsettling conclusion: Africa, despite popular perception, despite the Somalias and Zimbabwes, is moving in one direction, Canada in another. Read the headlines, examine the evidence, plot the trend line dots and find that as Africans – from turnaround Ghana to impoverished Malawi – struggle to strengthen their democracies, Canadians are letting theirs slip.
There, dictatorships are now more the exception than the rule and accountability is accepted as a precondition for stability. Here, power and control are increasingly concentrated and accountability honoured more in promise than practice. Canadian politicians flout the will of voters and parties. Once-solid institutions are being pulled apart by rising complexity and falling legitimacy. Scandals come and go without full public exposure or cleansing political punishment. If not yet lost, Camelot is under siege.
Laughter or disbelief would have been my '80s response to any gloomy prediction that within the next 20 odd years Canada's iconic police force would twist the outcome of a federal election. I would have rejected out of hand the suggestion that Parliament would become a largely ceremonial body incapable of performing its defining functions of safeguarding public spending and holding ministers to account. I would have treated as ridiculous any forecast that the senior bureaucracy would become politicized, that many of the powers of a monarch would flow from Parliament to the prime minister or that the authority of the Governor General, the de facto head of state, would be openly challenged.
Yet every one has happened and each has chipped away another brick of the democratic foundations underpinning Parliament. Incrementally and by stealth, Canada has become a situational democracy. What matters now is what works. Precedents, procedures and even laws have given way to the political doctrine of expediency.
No single party or prime minister is solely to blame. Since Pierre Trudeau first dismissed backbenchers as nobodies and began drawing power out of Parliament and into his office, all have contributed to the creep toward a more authoritarian, less accountable Canadian polity.
Some of the changes are understandable. Government evolves with its environment, and that environment has become more complex even as the controls have become wobblier, less connected. The terrible twins of globalization and subsidiarity – the sound theory that services are most efficiently delivered by the administrative level closest to the user – now sorely test the ability of national legislatures to respond to challenges at home and abroad. Think of it this way: Trade, the economy and the environment have all gone global while the things that matter most to most of us – health, education and the quality of city life – are the guarded responsibility of provinces and municipalities.
Politics and politicians being what they are, the reflex response is to grasp for all remaining power. Once secured, it can be used to exercise political will more easily by overruling rules and rewriting or simply ignoring laws. Power alone is effective in cross-cutting through the silo walls that isolate departments and frustrate co-ordinated policies. Important to all administrations, unfettered manoeuvring room is that much more important to minority governments desperate to maximize limited options and minimize opposition influence.
Good for prime ministers, that's not nearly good enough for the rest of us. It fuels an inexorable power drift to the opaque political centre, creating what Donald Savoie, Canada's eminent chronicler of Westminster parliaments, calls "court government." It's his clear and credible view that between elections, prime ministers now operate in the omnipotent manner of kings. Surrounded by subservient cabinet barons, fawning unelected courtiers and answerable to no one, they manage the affairs of state more or less as they please.
Prime ministers are freeing themselves from the chains that once bound them to voters, Parliament, cabinet and party. From bottom to top, from citizen to head of state, every link in those chains is stressed, fractured or broken.
One man's short political career helps explain how those connections fail. David Emerson, a respected former forestry executive and top B.C. bureaucrat, is recalled as one of Paul Martin's most competent ministers. Almost forgotten now is his corrosive effect on public trust.
In 2006, Emerson ran for re-election in Vancouver-Kingsway, winning easily as a Liberal. Weeks after promising to be Stephen Harper's "worst nightmare," Emerson was named to the Conservative cabinet in the trade portfolio he had long wanted and was well-suited for. His rationale was simple: There's no point in being in the capital if there's no real possibility of influencing the nation's course.
Emerson is an honest man and his motives genuine. But in severing the link between ballots and voter choice, he made nonsense of the electoral process.
Emerson was not alone in dripping acid on that rare winter election. But where he applied an eyedropper, then RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli emptied a bucket. With Liberals nursing an opinion-poll lead and Martin on track for a second minority, Zaccardelli dropped an unprecedented, still unexplained bombshell. In a private letter to the NDP, one the RCMP went to extraordinary lengths to ensure became public, the force confirmed its criminal investigation into rumoured leaks of the Liberal decision not to tax income trusts.
Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan candidly identifies that letter as the election's tipping point. Liberal scandals and ethics soared again to the top of voter minds, sending Martin tumbling and Liberals packing.
No political malfeasance was found – one bureaucrat was charged with gaining personal benefit. More remarkably, neither Zaccardelli nor the RCMP has been forced to fully deconstruct such an egregious intervention in the electoral process. To their lasting shame, all three federal parties, each to protect its interests and minimize embarrassment, chose to leave hanging the rotten odour of banana republic politics. Zaccardelli, defrocked for conflicting testimony in the Maher Arar affair, is in France, safe and quiet in an Interpol sinecure.
If Zaccardelli's intervention was wrong, Emerson's analysis was right: Being a bright, competent and energized backbencher in an increasingly ritualistic, theatrical and impotent House of Commons is an exercise in futility.
Parliament's problem is that it is patently dysfunctional. Its list of recent failures is long and instructive. It didn't notice the millions of Quebec sponsorship dollars shifting from the treasury to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's office or the runaway costs of the Liberal long-gun registry. Starved of resources and already ineffectual, its committees became a standing joke when Conservatives secretly wrote a 200-page manual to discourage curiosity about, say, alleged attempts to buy dying Chuck Cadman's Commons vote, or the ruling party's suspect in-and-out campaign money-laundering scheme.
It's so essential for the ruling party to keep Parliament in the dark that its independent officers are now forced to struggle for the funds and freedom to do their jobs. Need proof? Liberals and Tories nurtured a cottage industry that taught how to hide public information vital to open democracy by, among other tricks, insisting on untraceable verbal reports and scribbling sensitive information on removable Post-it notes. Conservatives in opposition promised to create a budget officer to follow how Ottawa spends hundreds of billions. In power they are yanking the leash on Kevin Page, the newest watchdog.
Given those frustrations – and others ranging from voting as the party demands, not as their conscience dictates, to the growing irrelevance of the Commons as a forum for shaping public policy – it's hardly surprising that most MPs, like David Emerson, want to be where the action is – in cabinet. Except that it's not.
Strong cabinets are dusty relics. Long gone are the days when powerful regional ministers could flex their muscles with prime ministers who were merely first among equals. Under Chrétien, cabinets became little more than focus groups. Stephen Harper is going farther, making most ministers anonymous and keeping others silent when tough questions are asked.
Far more powerful than ministers are the political professionals who form a protective inner circle beholden only to the prime minister, not voters. Those appointed apparatchiks are now so entrenched that even senior ministers – Martin's deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan was one – have trouble penetrating the barrier around "The Boss."
So who influences the prime minister, who moulds the putty of public policy? Well it's certainly not deputy ministers, those non-partisan civil servants who once took personal pride in speaking truth to power and kept resignations ready for the moment ministers crossed the line separating public interest from partisan advantage. For mandarins, Job One is no longer providing policy options, it's protecting ministers and the prime minister from political blowback. How much that's changed is measured by last year's report on the leak of a sensitive Canadian diplomatic memo suggesting Barack Obama was saying one thing publicly and another privately about renegotiating free trade.
In finding no culprit, an investigation led by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Ottawa's top public servant, pointed fingers at bureaucrats for circulating the memo too widely. But as the Star exposed at the time, civil servants didn't leak. It was political operatives in the Prime Minister's Office and in Canada's Washington embassy who recklessly jeopardized this country's interests to assist U.S. Republicans. Once again, the guilty went free.
If not Parliament, ministers or mandarins, who can hold the Prime Minister accountable? Apparently not political parties. On their way to their party's Winnipeg convention last year Conservatives, those grassroots activists who planted the seeds of the Reform movement and nurtured them until they grew into a government, were told they had become only one among many "stakeholders." Then, in a cameo convention appearance, the Prime Minister broke the news that hard times rendered the party's defining conservative framework at least temporarily null and void.
Liberals, facing a crisis of their own, responded with even more extreme pragmatism. Having reached the conclusion Stéphane Dion had to be replaced before Parliament reconvened for a critical January session, Liberals bent, folded and mutilated party rules to narrow the leadership contenders to one and anoint Michael Ignatieff interim chief. Whatever the urgency or justification, chattering-class Liberals effectively stripped the rank and file of the right and responsibility to choose a leader.
With parties pushed to the sidelines, only the Governor General remains as a political check on the prime minister. But even that control is suspect after last year's pre-Christmas coalition crisis. Here's how far outspoken minister John Baird said Conservatives were willing to go to hang on to power. "I think what we want to do is basically take a time out and go over the heads of the members of Parliament, go over the heads, frankly, of the Governor General, go right to the Canadian people."
Going over the head of the de facto head of state is a radical notion. But so, too, is the accelerating erosion of Parliament, cabinet, independent oversight and political parties. Extreme is now ho-hum in a country where the prime minister can override his own law to force an election, where accountability is little more than a campaign bumper sticker, where the police play politics and where there is no connection between scandal and punishment for those in privileged places.
Without meaningful engagement, participatory democracy is an oxymoron. Why vote if the winning candidate then switches sides? Why be a member of a powerless Parliament? Why be a minister in a cabinet without influence or a mandarin in a politically polluted bureaucracy? Why join a party to be spectator?
Responses can be found in the record low turnout of the last election. Or the dwindling number who consider federal politics relevant to real life or bother to join parties.
Fortunately, there are fixes. As Barack Obama proved in the U.S presidential campaign – and Premier Dalton McGuinty learned in Ontario when teenagers used Facebook to drive proposed drivers' licence restrictions into a dead end – the combination of motivated citizens and enabling technology is extraordinary.
If mad-as-hell voters can take back a riding, as they did in Vancouver by rejecting Emerson's adopted party, then surely MPs can recapture control of Parliament. It's possible, too, that ministers, bureaucrats and police officers can be forcefully reminded that their public duty is to the people, not to politicians. Even prime ministers can be told they are not monarchs.
Appealing as it sounds, advocacy requires effort. It's so much easier to go with the flow, to let situational democracy evolve with each reflex, stopgap, jerry-rigged response to every new policy demand and political threat. But that leads away from accountability and toward the Big Man culture that Africa is finally throwing off and has no place in Canada.
If war is too serious to leave to generals, then surely democracy is too important to delegate to politicians.
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